2nd March 2012, 08:57 PM
Unit writes "Isn’t pre ppg so long ago that it’s not worth remembering". I think the debates about the roles of archaeologists, the planning process, universities, research, national agencies and museums can only be understood by looking at how practice has developed - as Unit rightly implies, the shift towards professionalism (both in the standards sense and the paid-for-doing-the-work sense), including the desire for and creation of the IfA, pre-dates PPG16. Unless we look back that far we are likely to conclude that the current situation is the only possible one, while it is open to major reconfiguration given a direction of travel and enough pressure. In my book I trace the oriigin of many of the most problematic parts of current commercial practice to the unhelpful lessons learned by senior staff when they were working in the 1970s and 1980s.